


Different worlds, Different outcomes

by LeDiz



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kinda, Visions, alternate reality zukos, not quite AU, not really - Freeform, very unfinished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 21:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7730740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeDiz/pseuds/LeDiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each night, the Gaang have been visited by strangers that look and sound like the jerk prince, but aren't. No one's quite sure what that means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different worlds, Different outcomes

It wasn’t the Jerk Prince. It couldn’t be.

Sure, he looked like him. Even had the same scar. But everything about him, from the light in his eye to the way he held himself, was completely different. And besides, he called himself Li.

“No, I’ve lived in Ba Sing Se all my life,” he said cheerfully, pouring tea. He’d insisted on making them tea, after they’d found him stumbling through the swamp like a lost child. Even when they’d nearly lopped his head off after recognising him, and only Toph’s blunt refusal to let them attack stopped them. He’d brushed it away as them all being great warriors – of course they were liable to attack first.

It was weird.

“I suppose it’s not nearly so interesting as your lives – being adventurers must be quite exciting!” He was just so _enthusiastic_. “But it’s enough for me. I hope you like this – I’m no Mushi—oh, he’s the tea brewer in Master’s shop—but he is teaching me!”

They all stared into the cups he thrust at them. They’d watched him brew it, so they knew it couldn’t be poisoned, but… Aang, Sokka and Katara exchanged glances, then watched in a kind of horrified fascination as Toph sipped hers like it hadn’t been prepared by their former worst enemy.

She paused, considering. “Not bad. You still have a way to go, but it’s definitely better than anything these three could make.”

The stranger practically lit up. Even Sokka twitched, because the smile made him just look… he looked at Katara sideways and wasn’t entirely surprised to see she’d gone a little pink.

“So… if you’re from the Earth Kingdom…” Aang trailed off while the other two tried their surprisingly good tea, none of them sure how to broach the whole ‘you sure as heck look like a Fire Nation prince’ subject.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure my parents were from somewhere else,” he said, settling back on his heels, and Sokka eyed the posture thoughtfully. He’d never seen that level of flexible stiffness in anyone but Fire Nation. Even the Northern Water tribe nobles spread their legs a little, resting more on the sides of their feet than high on the backs. “I never knew them, though. Never knew any of my family, actually.”

“I’m sorry,” Katara said automatically, but he just shrugged, smiling that transforming smile again.

“I’ve never missed them. And I’m sure, to leave such a wonderful place as Ba Sing Se, they must have had excellent reasons. Though I’ve no idea what they would be.”

“They didn’t tell you? I mean, your foster family?” Katara asked, and the not-prince shrugged again.

“I don’t have a foster family.”

“Then…” They exchanged glances. “How did you… survive? Growing up?”

He blinked at them, looked down a moment, then looked up again. His expression didn’t change, though it was one of mild, polite curiosity, as if the thought had never occurred to him. After a few moments, a slightly glazed look came over his eyes, before he said, “It’s not really important.”

“Right,” Sokka drawled out, and set his tea aside, leaning into Zuko’s personal space. “So, _Li_ , you wanna tell us how you got that scar?”

The glazed look became more pronounced, accompanied by a small smile as well. “It’s not really important.”

Sokka really did twitch that time, because this wasn’t just weird. This was _creepy_.

And the thing was, they believed him, even without Toph motioning to them that he wasn’t lying. Zuko, for all his numerous faults, was not a liar. They’d seen him lie and he generally sucked at it. Which meant he honestly didn’t know. Like someone had taken the knowledge and…

And it was about there that it hit them.

Jet had once worn that same dazed look too.

“Oh, wow,” Katara whispered. Because how else were you supposed to react to your worst enemy being forcibly removed from the fight by a method you found utterly abhorrent?

And, come to think of it, how had it even happened? Even if Azula had allowed the hypnosis to keep happening, they didn’t think she would have done it to her own brother, no matter how screwed up their family seemed. And even if she had, would she really have made him some anonymous tea shop attendant?

“How’d you get out here, anyway?” Toph asked suddenly. “This isn’t exactly Ba Sing Se.”

“I’m not sure,” Zuko said, shaking his head slightly as clarity—or the closest he could come to clarity in that state—returned. “The last thing I remember was closing up shop with Mushi. And then, there was this odd blue light. I think Mushi told me not to touch it, but the next thing I knew, I was here.”

Sokka and Katara exchanged worried glances, but Aang just stared at the not-prince. He looked the same – the shaggy hair, the horrible scar, the gold eyes and pale skin. But everything else about him was different. His shoulders sat more comfortably, he moved with the light step of the Blue Spirit, he wore a small, sensitive smile almost constantly, and his eyes… there was no brittle, desperate edge to his eyes anymore.

When Katara took him off to find food—in a swamp, she was probably the best equipped to do something if anything went wrong—Aang wasted no time in telling the others, “I don’t want to tell him the truth.”

“Yeah, I gotta say I agree with you on this one,” Sokka said, folding his arms. “I’m not big on the whole ‘reminding my enemy he wants to kill me’ thing.”

“It’s not that.”

“It’s not? Gotta say, it’s a pretty big issue for me,” said Toph.

“Well. I mean. Yeah, that’s nice too,” he said awkwardly, then tried again. “It’s more that… even when he’s had us captured, or something’s gone wrong, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Zuko so… happy. At peace.”

Toph was pointedly silent, and Sokka stared at him bluntly for a few seconds, before throwing up his hands. “Fine! As long as we’re all agreed then, for whatever reason. You don’t tell him so the evil psycho prince is feeling all zen, and we don’t tell him so the evil psycho prince doesn’t try to stab us all in our sleep. I can work with that.”

Toph flinched, then frowned, getting ready, but the boys didn’t notice.

“So what do we do with him? We obviously can’t let the Fire Nation have him,” Aang said, and Sokka folded his arms.

“Well we can’t keep him. I don’t think ‘Li’ even knows what Firebending looks like.”

“It may not be up to us,” Toph said, and then pointed through the trees. “He already has a keeper, after all.”

They swung around, but as Iroh stepped out from behind a tree, almost out of earshot, he held up his hands placatingly. “Be at peace, my young friends. As the young lady suggested, I am here only for my nephew; not to fight you.”

They paused, Sokka lowering his boomerang and Aang moving out of stance. Iroh was crafty, but he didn’t usually bother them (aside from being with Zuko when _he_ bothered them) unless there was no other way to keep Zuko out of harm’s way.

Still… “It’d be nice to believe you,” Sokka said fairly, “but right now I don’t think your nephew has any idea who either of you are, so the argument isn’t exactly rock-solid.”

“You are correct in the first, but not in the second,” he said, moving forward with his hands still where they could see them, relaxed and out of stance. “For though my nephew is unaware of who he is, or even my true name, I am still very aware of who _he_ is, and my feelings have not changed. Even should he never recall our bond, I will always be his uncle, and he will always be under my protection.”

They heard the mild warning for what it was, but also the way around it. They didn’t hurt Zuko, or Li, or whoever he thought he was, and Iroh wouldn’t do anything against them.

Aang let go of the last of his defence to stand up straight. “What happened to him? I thought the Fire Nation would have stopped all that brain washing stuff when they took over.”

“Took over?” Iroh repeated, raising an eyebrow. “The Fire Nation have not yet breached the Earth Kingdom walls. You and your friends were quite successful in pushing the Princess Azula back. At least, in the world I know.”

“Say what?” Toph asked. “What do you mean ‘world you know’?”

“Yeah, you wanna run that by us again, old man?” Sokka asked, and very nearly dodged Toph’s punishing arm.

“Before we were here, Zuko and I saw a bright blue light. It called to Zuko and drew him in. I do not claim to know all there is to know about the spirits, but I have experienced the spirit world before. I know we passed through it, and this world does not feel the way of my own,” he said, then sighed, looking back at them. “Also, the way you speak of my nephew does not speak well of his time here. In my own world, I have hoped his place in your war is over, and that he should find peace, even if his memory is restored.”

“You said that in your world, Ba Sing Se is still under control of the Earth King?” Aang prompted. “So we stopped the drill, and I guess it’s kinda obvious Zuko didn’t go back to Azula's side.”

Iroh’s eyes hardened slightly, but he shook his head. “No great change has come in the war since the Battle of the Northern Water Tribe. Small victories, for both sides, but no grand events. But it has been no great span of time, so small blessings may be counted.”

They exchanged glances again. Obviously, Aang hadn’t been hit by lightning there, either. But, if Zuko hadn’t backed up Azula, then… yeah, they could almost see the tide having been turned at Ba Sing Se. Still… even counting Iroh as an extension of his nephew (which, to be honest, they kinda did sometimes), two people couldn’t possibly have made that much of a difference, could they?

But then, what reason would Iroh have to lie?

When Katara and Zuko returned with a pitiful selection of swamp berries and fish, he was openly happy to see his uncle again, though he didn’t call him that. For him, Iroh was Mushi, and he smiled that same broad, disarming smile that changed his whole face. Aang watched Iroh, and realised Zuko he wasn’t the only one who had mixed feelings about Zuko forgetting who he was.

But then, just as they were sitting down to start cooking, Zuko turned to Iroh to speak, and none of them heard what he said. They looked up, surprised, then shocked, to see the pair of them begin fading out of existence, still silently chatting away.

Within a minute, without any further warning, they were gone.

Only Zuko’s cooling pot of fairly-good tea remained.

 

* * *

 

“Do you think it was maybe trying to tell us something?” Katara mused, as they climbed up onto Appa the next day. “Some kind of message from the spirits?”

“Telling us what, exactly?” Sokka asked dryly. “That Prince Jerk makes a mean cup of tea when he wants to?”

“I was thinking something more strategic. Like, maybe Zuko’s that little bit of extra firepower that keeps pushing Azula over the edge to beating us,” she suggested. “If we got rid of Zuko, we’d have an easier time getting to her.”

“I don’t know, Katara,” Toph said slowly. “Zuko’s persistent, but he’s not exactly the most powerful bender I’ve ever seen.”

“Neither’s Sokka, but I wouldn’t want him taken away,” she argued, and Sokka blinked rapidly.

“Aww, Katara! You –”

“Well. At least not until we finish using him as flame shield, anyway.”

Aang smiled, but didn’t say anything, his mind still on Li’s easy smile and quick step, compared to Zuko’s pained eyes and heavy tread.

They were still on his mind that night, when they settled down on the edge of an island that was made of little more than volcanic rock. They were just putting the last touches on the camp when Toph flinched and called out a warning, seconds before a figure stumbled over the closest rocky ridge, holding his head and groaning.

There was a pause as they stared. The figure was dressed like a civilian from the Fire Nation, his clothes slightly higher quality than their own stolen wear, but his hair was done up in a high tail. There was a pause, Toph on edge and all of them half-ready for battle, until he looked up, and met their gaze.

Two whole golden eyes blinked back at them, and his hair was long, almost to his shoulder blade even in that tail, but beyond that, it was still Prince Zuko who stared back at them. He even raised the eyebrow they’d never seen before. “What?”

“Hold on,” Aang told them all, even though they were all a little frozen. He had no _scar_. “Remember last night.”

Zuko’s eyebrow rose even higher. It was surprisingly expressive. “Sokka fell in the swamp and I had to spend half an hour crawling around in the muck for his boomerang?” He paused, then pulled back, making a face. “Aang, what have you got on your head? Is that… hair?”

Katara let her water slide back into its hold, and Aang rubbed his forehead. He could already tell this was going to get confusing. Sokka, on the other hand, looked to Toph. “Even with last night – lock him up.”

“It would be my pleasure!” she said, and Zuko cried out as he was suddenly encased in rock up to his neck.

“Guys! What the heck?! I thought we were over this!”

“Yeah, in your world?” Katara said, setting her hands on her hips. “But here, we’re not.”

“What?” he asked, and then shook his head, staring at her with his brows furrowed. “Okay, seriously, did something happen when I was gone? Does this have anything to do with that blue light I saw just now? Aang, are you okay?”

“Me?” he asked, and Zuko looked at him a shade more intensely. He was… worried. Aang sighed and rubbed his head again. “Okay, this is seriously getting beyond weird.”

As it turned out, this Zuko had never searched for the Avatar, until just after they breached the fire temple, way back when they first heard about the Eclipse. Something—he wouldn’t tell them what—had happened after that, and he’d decided to escape the palace to join their group. It had taken him months before he’d managed to find them, and another month before they trusted him.

Like the Zuko from last night, this one was different from the one they knew, and it wasn’t just his scar. He didn’t smile the way the other one had, but he was quieter, and Toph noticed he panicked slightly when people got aggressive, though he didn’t let it show. After she let him out of his prison, and they went around the fire, he went out of his way to sit between Sokka and Toph, opposite Aang and slightly out of Katara’s direct line of sight.

“So, what’s happening with the war, in your world?” Sokka asked. “When we talked to your uncle last night, he said it had kind of stalled.”

Zuko blinked rapidly. “My uncle said that?”

“Well, not yours,” Aang corrected awkwardly. “The other Zuko’s. From the other world.”

“Which isn’t this world,” he said. A hint of dry humour was starting to eek through as he calmed down. “Which you all think is the real one.”

“Hey, you’re in _our_ world, buddy,” Toph pointed out, and Zuko shrugged.

“Okay, fine. Whatever. Well, in my world, the war’s getting better all the time. Now that Avatar’s returned, and is learning all the elements, my father’s forces are getting pushed back every time they try to make a new advancement.” He glanced at Sokka, apparently didn’t find what he was looking for, and focussed firmly on Aang. “We’re planning an invasion on the day of the solar eclipse, but you don’t know firebending yet. That’s why we’re out here, in the middle of nowhere, so we can try to find the People of the Sun, who can teach you.”

“Can’t you?” asked Katara. Only Toph noticed Zuko flinch slightly. Katara leaned forward to shoot him an expectant look. “You’re a firebender. Can’t you teach him?”

“I – my bending…” He stalled, glanced at Sokka again, then lowered his eyes to the ground. “My bending hasn’t worked properly for a while now. That’s the other reason we’re going. Aang thinks they might be able to figure out what’s wrong with me.”

“Is that why you weren’t searching for the Avatar?” Sokka asked. “Because you can’t bend properly?”

“Why would I have been searching for the Avatar?” he asked, just as confused. “He’d been missing for a hundred years. Wasn’t it like that in your world?”

“Well, yeah, but… you know, I always kinda wondered about that. I’ve been meaning to ask, but, thing is, you’re kinda evil in our world. We don’t exactly get a whole lot of chances to chat.”

He just stared at him, nonplussed, while Aang sat forward. “So, how were things at Ba Sing Se? Were you there?”

“You mean when you told the Earth King about the war?” he asked, then shook his head. “I was still on the run from Azula. From what you’ve told me—my you, I mean—you handed it to Zhao pretty good, though.”

There was a hint of a smile there, though the waterbenders both looked at Aang, shocked, and Toph cocked her head.

“Zhao? Who’s Zhao?”

“Commander Zhao. He was chasing us for a while, back when we first started out,” Sokka explained darkly. “But he messed up big time. He tried to kill the moon spirit, and no one’s heard from him since.”

“I heard about that,” said Zuko. “Officially, he was forced back by the Avatar and the Northern Water Tribe before he could breach the walls. But the truth is, my uncle stopped him long before he got anywhere near the North Pole.”

“This is so weird,” Katara breathed, sitting back with her head in her hands. “We’re winning the war? Zhao’s still alive? Azula’s not chasing us all over?”

“Oh, she is, now,” Zuko said, grimacing. “When I left, Father ordered her to… keep me from joining you. Now we’re together, she’s more or less supposed to kill us all.”

“But we’re winning, right?” Sokka prompted, and he nodded.

“You had a huge head start. You were already learning waterbending from the Northern Water tribe before anyone could even confirm you existed,” he explained, then winced. “And, well, things were pretty unstable at home. My grandfather’s dying, and he hasn’t named a successor. Uncle has no heir, but with me as second in line, no one really wanted to put the royal lineage on Father’s side either. To be honest, the Fire Nation was a little distracted when you started inspiring people to strike back.”

“You know, I’m noticing a pattern here,” Sokka said, lifting a finger in his standard lecturing pose. “Take Zuko out of the equation and we seem to do a lot better in this war thing.”

“I’m sitting right here,” he said, but Sokka just waved him down. Zuko scowled and folded his arms but didn’t say anything as Sokka continued.

“I propose a new strategy. Next time we see the Fire Twins, we put all our energy into knocking out Jerk Prince, fly Appa up as high as he can go, and drop Zuko over the edge,” he said cheerfully, ignoring Zuko’s darkening look. “Best case, he dies! Worst case, he spends the rest of the war swimming back to shore and we take advantage of him not being there.”

Zuko opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he was saying was lost as he began fading away. They watched, silent, as he straightened, apparently noticing something was different, but didn’t manage to really react beyond that before disappearing altogether.

The campfire went out with him.

 

* * *

 

They talked about it. Agreed it was probably some Avatar-spirit-thing, possibly related to whatever had gone on with that crazy family back in Ba Sing Se. Maybe Zuko was having a nervous breakdown or something and they were copping the fallout because, hello, Avatar.

They amused themselves for a while by guessing what tomorrow’s Zuko would be. Sokka was hoping for a girl Zuko, just because it would be funny, while Katara was anticipating an even more evil version than the real thing. Toph insisted it would be another not-Zuko, who thought he was Water Tribe and all self-conflicted, because self-conflict was kind of a running theme here.

Aang listened to their guesses with a smile, but when they all went to bed, he stayed awake, wondering. Eventually, it became meditating. Moments later, he was in the spirit world, and the spirits were laughing at his questions.

But then he found the Blue Spirit, lounging in a natural circular formation in some rocks, sharpening swords and looking too much like the person Zuko had pretended to be behind his mask. He grinned at Aang’s questions and explained.

He was a little tired of the game. The metaphor. It was stacked too highly in one side’s favour. And he preferred a game with equal sides.

“What metaphor?”

_The_ metaphor. The spirit and human worlds were colliding, the Fire Nation against the Avatar, the blood of Roku and Sozin. One side was going to triumph. Without the Avatar, the spirits had been given so little time to stack the deck, while the humans had over a decade.

“A century,” he corrected absently. “The Fire Nation has been attacking for a hundred years.”

The Blue Spirit only grinned. He was giving them a chance to see the consequences of the metaphor before they came to be. Three jins. Neutral first, because it was closest to now. Positive next, because it would build them up. And then. Tomorrow night, they would see. Negative jin, what would happen if the Avatar did not build up his deck.

Aang woke up from his trance, more worried than ever, and stared into the campfire flames.

 

* * *

 

They landed early the next day, refusing to admit to themselves why, and set up camp. No one talked, but they all kept their eyes and ears open, waiting expectantly.

Eventually, it came, in the form of the knife-girl, dragging a semi-conscious Zuko out of the bamboo. When she saw them, she froze, and then immediately whipped out a knife to point at them threateningly.

Normally, they would have all been on edge. But even without the last couple of days, with Zuko leaning heavily on her shoulder, and that wide, desperate look in her eyes, the image wasn’t threatening.

It was kind of pathetic.

“Who are you?” she demanded finally. “What do you want?”

“You don’t know us?” Katara asked carefully.

The question seemed to fray another of her limited nerves. “Y-you’re dead. You died at the Northern Water Tribe.”

They stared at her, then around at each other. Her eyes latched onto Aang, and Toph noticed her shaking.

“And y-you… you were in prison. H-how did you escape? What’s going on?”

“Calm down, I think you’re a little confused,” Katara said gently. “Here, let us help you.”

“Stay back!” she shouted, and it was that, more than the wildly flailing blade, that kept them away. When they saw her, she was almost always calm and collected, occasionally burning with tranquil fury and always dangerous but never so… violent. Zuko began to slide off her shoulder and she dropped her knife to pull him back up again, whispering too low for anyone but Toph to hear. “Wake up, I can’t protect you like this.”

“Uh, hello, knife-lady?” she called, and then stomped her foot. A slate of rock slammed up out of the ground, shoving her away and cradling Zuko as he slid, almost smoothly, to the ground. “Kinda benders, here.”

Aang flinched and blasted the knife away with a gale only a split-second after it was thrown, and Katara immediately froze her in place afterward, while Sokka blinked, only vaguely aware of what had happened. The girl snarled, her neck twisting as she tried to get free, but she was tightly bound.

“Let’s all just calm down here,” Aang said firmly, moving forward with both hands raised. “We’re not –”

“The Avatar has escaped!” They all looked around in time to see Zuko stumble to one knee, reaching for something on his back that wasn’t there. He had two whole eyes, but they were both black and bleary beneath his long, wiry hair. Even on his knee, he tilted to one side, and fell into the slate when he tried to get up. “Monster, I’ll see you in chains again!”

The girl blanched, trying to see him. “Zuko, no! Stay down!”

“Mai! I’ll find you Mai,” he slurred, and they watched him slide back down the slate and into that almost-unconscious state from before. None of them had moved since he rose, and they calmly went back to the girl.

“What happened?” asked Katara.

“This is the Zuko from the world where we’re losing the war,” Aang said quietly, staring at his enemy’s doppelganger.

“ _Lost_ the war!” the girl—Mai—spat. “I don’t know how you escaped, or what trickery you used to bring her back, but you have no chance. The three lesser nations have fallen, and now Fire will rebuild this world as it should have been a hundred years ago.”

There was something in her tone, in the way she said it—the fact it was her saying it, and without sarcasm—that made it sound like a question. Like she was begging them to confirm it was true.

“So don’t even bother trying to ransom him,” she continued. “There’s no way the Fire Lord will sacrifice his position for Zuko. I wouldn’t even try.”

They all frowned at her, but it was Sokka to unhook his sword and move over where he could kneel in front of the fallen prince. He pushed back the hair—thin but clumped with sweat—and Zuko peered at him wearily. There wasn’t a lot of coherence in that gaze. After a moment, he lifted his finger and waved it in front of the swollen eyes. They barely followed.

“That’s a seriously scrambled egg,” he announced as he stood up. “Who was the lucky one to catch him upside the head and when can I shake his hand?”

The girl glared at him furiously and didn’t answer.

Katara shifted her weight, glancing at Aang, and then said, “Well, if we’re not going to ransom him, what do you expect us to do? We’re sure as heck not going to let him go free.”

“Keep him prisoner,” she answered immediately. “Lock him up and never let him go again.”

“Awfully quick to throw away his freedom, aren’t you?” Toph asked lazily.

She went back to glaring.

“We’re not who you think we are,” Aang said quietly. “You’re not in your world. Look.”

She hesitated, then followed his pointing finger up to the sky. Her eyes widened at the sight of the moon.

“I think you’re here to teach us something,” he said gently. “The Blue Spirit brought you here to tell us about your world and why it could be so different from ours.”

“I think you’re already off to a good start,” she said dryly, still staring at the moon. “General Zhao never destroyed the moon spirit.”

“He did,” Sokka corrected coldly. “Princess Yue gave her life to resurrect it.”

She lowered her eyes to his, and just stared at him for a long moment. “In my world, Prince Zuko captured Yue for his father. She was killed as an example.”

“An example!” Katara exploded, and the ice tightened, making the girl grunt quietly. “Of Fire Nation cruelty! I bet the water tribes came after you for that good you –”

“I hardly think the Water Tribe knows,” she snapped back. “It wasn’t _for_ them.”

“Oh, sure, right. Then who was it for?”

“Me,” Zuko murmured, and they looked around at him, but for several moments, he only stared up at the sky, transfixed. When he looked down again, he peered at Sokka, confused. “I didn’t learn my lesson. I would still grant your request. You had honour I don’t.”

Now that was more like the Zuko they knew – honour and confused half-statements.

But then the words filtered through. ‘Had’. Their Sokka was dead. Their Katara was dead. And Aang had been captured. They’d lost the war in their world, and yet…

Zuko, Prince of the Fire Nation, looked worse than ever.

“You’re scared of him,” the girl realised softly. “He doesn’t have his swords, but you’re still scared of him.”

Swords? They exchanged glances. They’d only seen Zuko with swords once or twice.

“I’m a bender here,” Zuko breathed, and a very small smile stretched across his face. It wasn’t the warm, enthusiastic smile of the first night, or the occasional smirk they’d seen on the real prince’s face. This was… almost like tears, as he slid back into unconsciousness. “My family’s… honour…”

After a while, and a few negotiations, Katara released Mai, who immediately hurried to Zuko’s side, protective despite her shivering. She explained, in halting, angry comments, that Zuko wasn’t a firebender and never had been. It had brought shame to his family, because he was first born, but what good was a Firelord that couldn’t produce fire? He’d tried to make up for it by becoming a first-rate strategist and swordsman, but that only made the problem worse. Politically, he would have been an amazing ruler, but traditionally he would ruin everything.

But they’d had use for him, during the war. He was a good strategist and unbeatable spy. His help at the North Pole had ensured their victory, when he captured the chief’s family and drove the Avatar back long enough for their troops to conquer. He was part of the team that chased the Avatar down across the Earth Kingdom, and helped his sister bring down the walls of Ba Sing Se. He kept the earth benders at bay while his sister brought down the Avatar.

Now, the war was basically over. And politics meant Zuko was very much in the way.

“They’re trying to kill him?” Sokka asked, poking at Zuko’s so very unscarred cheekbone. “I thought you said he was the biggest and baddest.”

She glared, both at the word negative word and his poking. “We can’t prove anything. Even to Zuko. It’s just accidents.”

“He doesn’t believe they’re trying to kill him?” Katara asked quietly, and she shook her head.

“He would never believe ill of his family. Not even his sister, and we all fear her,” she said coolly. “He believes that he just needs to abdicate the throne and everything will be fine. But he can’t do that until the throne is passed on. So he _understands_ —” she practically spat the word. It was so weird to see her expressing emotion. “—their concern.”

They fell silent, looking at each other awkwardly. Even if he hadn’t been their enemy in this world, he was clearly evil in that one. And yet Mai was kind of making them feel sorry for him. And it was kind of… ethically troubling, his blind allegiance to people that were trying to kill him. It made them wonder about their own Zuko, and the way he’d hesitated before joining the battle in Ba Sing Se.

“You’re running away,” Toph surmised. “Something happened, and you’re getting him away.”

Mai narrowed her eyes. “He won’t believe me, but Azula is getting more blatant. I won’t let him die.” She paused, hesitating, then grit her teeth and hunched over in a bow. “You have to take him prisoner. Lock him up for the rest of his life. Never let him go back. Please.”

They looked at each other, unsure of how to tell her she would be gone in a few minutes, and whether they would even if they could.

 

* * *

 

It was quiet at midnight, which was noticeable only because it meant Sokka was still awake.

They were all lying in a circle around the campfire, just staring up at nothing.

“Okay, you know what? We’re talking about this,” Sokka announced, sitting up in a flurry of movement. Toph remained lying down, though she lowered her earth tent, and Aang only shifted onto his elbows, but Katara slowly pushed herself up to meet his gaze.

“According to what Aang found out, that should have been the last of them,” she said softly. “So apparently we should have learnt our lesson.”

“What lesson?” he demanded, gesturing wildly. “I don’t know anything different than I did three days ago, which is that if we get rid of Zuko, we do way better in the war. His sister’s a psycho, but he’s the one who actually gets stuff done. We get rid of him, we win.”

“No we don’t,” Toph snapped. “The first one was taken out of the war and we weren’t any closer to winning than before. We were still in Ba Sing Se and defending it.”

“But we hadn’t lost it!”

“We have the Avatar; win or lose, we shouldn’t be in the exact same place we’ve been for a hundred years!” she argued. “Don’t you get it? The war is finally going places. Don’t you think that’s important?”

Aang blinked, turning to look at her over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Before you showed up, the last major event was the destruction of the Air Benders,” she said bluntly. “All that’s been happening since then is the Fire Nation whittling away at the other nations, barely getting anywhere. They want more land and the Earth Kingdom won’t give it up, but no one’s been really fighting properly. Then you show up and suddenly great battles are being fought. The two water tribes are meeting again. You guys found Swamp Benders! Stuff is happening now!”

“Because the Avatar is giving people hope,” Katara murmured, pulling her knees up and folding her arms around them. “Because now people think they could maybe win this.”

“But when Prince Fire-pants got taken out of the fight, it went back to being nothing,” she said. “I think that means something.”

“Like what?” Sokka cried. “He doesn’t matter to most of the Earth Kingdom! In fact, aside from us, no one outside the Fire Nation even knows who he is! What impact could he possibly have?”

“I don’t know! I’m not the wishy-washy ‘think about what stuff means’ one here! You’re the ideas guy, you tell us!”

Sokka opened his mouth to argue, and then stopped, and so did they all. Because really... what were they supposed to take from all this?

**Author's Note:**

> The 48 are a collection of fics saved to my hard drive, mostly unfinished or pointless. I'm posting them here for people's interest, or in case anyone wants to adopt them.
> 
> This is... I have no idea where I was going with this. I feel like it's third-quarters done and I have no idea what my plan was. Haven't touched it since February 2012. So... yeah. If you want it...?


End file.
